Regular readers know I often recommend books in my posts. If you’ve ever clicked on the links, you also sent a few pennies my way, due to my participation in Amazon’s “affiliate program.” I got even more if you actually bought something. It never amounted to much, just a few dollars a year, but it enabled me to get something here and there on Amazon that I might otherwise have passed on, thanks to you.

Now Amazon is shutting that program down, thanks to the State of California:

Unfortunately, Governor Brown has signed into law the bill that we emailed you about earlier today. As a result of this, contracts with all California residents participating in the Amazon Associates Program are terminated effective today, June 29, 2011. Those California residents will no longer receive advertising fees for sales referred to Amazon.com, Endless.com, MYHABIT.COM or SmallParts.com. Please be assured that all qualifying advertising fees earned before today will be processed and paid in full in accordance with the regular payment schedule.

That was part of an email I received yesterday from Amazon. The law in question is AB 27 X1, part of a budget deal to produce a balanced budget as required by law (and so legislators can start getting paid again, once the final budget is signed). Brown and the Democratic majority expect this extension of the sales tax to bring in about $200 million. I’d like to know what they were smoking, because Amazon hasn’t needed the revenue from Affiliates in years, but kept the program running as a way to build goodwill and customer loyalty. Since they didn’t need the revenue, and since California has now raised the cost of the program to more than Amazon was willing to pay, the company did what was predictable by anyone except a California Democrat — they pulled the plug. Sacramento won’t see a dime of that $200 million.

But wait, it gets better!

While my earnings were small potatoes (1), quite a few people made a business out of sending customers to Amazon. According to Moe Lane, California collected about $124 million in income tax revenue from people in the referral program. So, not only will they not get the $200 million, but they’ll lose the income tax money, too.

Genius, sheer genius.

I’ve long said that to be a liberal Democrat requires one to forget even the basics of economics; this would be the tax policy equivalent. Common sense tells you that, if you make the cost of business too high, the business will go away. We’ve already seen a lot of that in California, and this is another example because taxes and tax-handling are a cost of business.

California may once have been “The Golden State,” but the people who run it are treating it like the goose that laid the golden eggs, instead. Keep it up, and they’ll soon learn its moral.

Really, I thought they couldn’t get any more ridiculous than naming Iran, a Sharia-enforcing fascist state, to the Commission on the Status of Women, but they did it. Meet the new President of the United Nations Conference on Disarmament:

Despite numerous breaches of arms embargoes and continued threats to expand its nuclear weapons program, North Korea has assumed the presidency of the United Nations Conference on Disarmament. In a speech to the 65-nation arms control forum in Geneva, the newly-appointed president, North Korean Ambassador So Se Pyong, said he was “very much committed to the Conference.”

Appointing a North Korean to chair the UN’s only multilateral disarmament forum is like “asking the fox to guard the chickens,” says Hillel Neuer, of the UN watchdog organization UN Watch. Neuer is calling on the U.S. and European governments to protest the appointment, which he says, “damages the UN’s credibility.”

When asked about the controversy over North Korea’s new leadership role, UN spokesman Farhan Haq pointed out that the head of the Conference on Disarmament is selected by the member states that sit on the conference, not the UN secretary general.

Haq added that when Secretary General Ban Ki-moon spoke at the Conference on Disarmament this January, he urged the states who sit on the conference to do more to advance its work, so that it “does not become irrelevant.”Aware that many nations see the Conference on Disarmament as a place of talk rather than a forum that does substantive work, Secretary General Ban warned: “The very credibility of this body is at risk.”

“At risk?” I’d say whatever credibility the conference still had has been taken out back and shot.

Claudia Rosett is appalled. After rattling off the serial illicit arms-dealing (including passing nuclear tech) that makes this appointment a joke, she explains the real harm this does:

Except, it isn’t harmless. It gives the lie to everything the UN pretends to stand for, and emboldens North Korea’s regime to believe that monstrous misconduct, at home and abroad, is actually no bar to a seat at the table with civilized governments. The UN promotes itself as a defender of world peace and security, a champion of human dignity. Under the banner of such promises, the UN enjoys billions in funding from the world’s leading democracies — especially the United States, which for the entire UN system foots roughly one-quarter of the bill for all 192 member states. And with the facilities thus lavished upon it, the UN then hands North Korea the presidency of its Conference on Disarmament.

Worse, scroll down past the UN press release, to the statements of member states upon the handover of this presidency to North Korea. There you can peruse the praise and good wishes for North Korea of China, Nigeria, and — yes — Portugal, whose envoy is “looking forward” to working with North Korea in coming weeks. Worse still, is what the world’s governments, including the US. administration, are not saying. Apparently, diplomatic politesse is more important than speaking out to protest the monstrosities that should be obvious here to anyone with an ounce of integrity or sense. Where’s the outrage?

Dead, I imagine, along with the pretense that the United Nations does anything worthwhile.

By the way, a couple of weeks ago the US intercepted a ship suspected of carrying contraband missile technology to the tyrants who rule Burma.

A ship from North Korea, the new President of the UN Disarmament Conference.

Memo to Congress: If you’re looking for ways to cut the budget, let me make a suggestion…